Recent discussions with my son about my past gambling behavior has pushed me to think deeper in my thinking to figure out what my end goal is. What is it that I want him to learn from my experiences and apply to his own life?
And I think this is a question we should all be asking. What is the goal of our advocacy work?
I bring this up as too often it feels like the goal for some of us is to stop people from gambling. If we highlight all of the bad things that happen to people, maybe they won’t ever gamble and therefore can completely avoid gambling harm.
While that was likely a previous thought of mine, it’s not my current goal.
My current goal isn’t to turn him or anyone else that hasn’t already crossed the line into gambling disorder into a non-gambler, but rather to help them to become a better consumer of all things.
I share my struggles as a way to highlight how gambling took time and attention away from other things I loved. This message clearly has been getting through as he recently compared my gambling to how he sometimes played a certain video game too often at the exclusion of other things he likes to do. This awareness allows us to have a discussion on self-regulation tips and techniques that he can not only apply to video games, but to all areas of his life.
So, I ask you: What is your goal of advocacy?
If we start with the end in mind, the path forward is much easier to identify.